Industry 4.0: Tailored strategies for every company

Industry 4.0 secures competitiveness in production. Its implementation is supported by procedural guidelines developed by IFA and wbk. (Photo: Festo)

05. December 2016

IFA | Implementing Industry 4.0 into their production helps SMEs to improve their efficiency – when selecting those methods and technologies which suit their company’s needs best. This approach is supported by researchers of IFA and wbk.

In Order to stay competitive, companies need to invest in smart manufacturing technologies. While there is an increasing market for Industry 4.0 solutions, not every solution suits every company. Within the scope of the research project “Intro 4.0“, the Institute of Production Systems and Logistics (IFA) of Leibniz Universität Hannover and the wbk Institute of Production Science of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) are developing a “digital toolbox“ which companies may choose their specific methods and technologies from.

The toolbox contains scientific methods as well as best-practice examples. For this purpose, the researchers are working in close cooperation with six corporate users. They support and analyse the introduction of a large variety of Industry 4.0 solutions – from operator information systems to RFID-based production order tracking to dynamic milk run concepts.

They implement best practices into their Industry 4.0 toolbox so that others may learn from it.

by Norman Malessa and Marco Hübner

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Industry 4.0 secures competitiveness in production. Its implementation is supported by procedural guidelines developed by IFA and wbk. (Photo: Festo)

The researchers investigate a large variety of Industry 4.0 methods – from operator information systems to RFID-based production order tracking to dynamic milk-run concepts. (Graphic: IFA)